good food with simple ingredients

The Wynn Resort in Las Vegas teamed up with famous vegan chef Tal Ronnen to create exquisite menus of vegan and vegetarian cuisine for every restaurant at the Wynn.

The challenge was to pick an item off the the amazing menu and make it my own, in other words I could pick any item and change it, putting our own spin on the dish. I am always up for a challenge and looking at the menu it was hard to decide from all the amazing dishes that Chef Ronnen created for Wynn.

I chose the Gardein “Vegan” Meatballs with Tomato Sauce and Creamy Polenta. So you wonder what Bahn Mi has to do with this right, well I took creative license and took the meatballs and created an entirely new dish, Vietnamese not Italian. I appreciate and love vegetarian food but am not vegetarian, I have never cooked with a “meat substitute” before, therein lies the challenge. I wanted to make meatballs and to stay somewhat true to the dish I found Gardein “Meatless” meat. I was happy to see that Gardein is non GMO and has very few ingredients, I can pronounce all of them. My dish is Vegetarian not Vegan, I needed egg to hold the patties together and wanted to use Mayonaise on the sandwich. This could easily be veganized I am sure by using flax seed egg substitute and a vegan mayo.

I thought I could take this product and form it into meatballs, it didn’t work very well. I added some corn starch and egg along with some ginger, soy sauce and chili paste. They would not form a ball so I made a patty and fried them. Honestly, they were very tasty.

Gardein Patties

I pickled some vegetables, whats Bahn Mi without pickled veggies. I used cucumber, carrot, and watermelon radish which I made into thin strips by using my vegetable peeler, then you simply mix rice wine vinegar, sugar, sesame oil and salt and pepper together and pour it onto the vegetables. Let it sit for a little while, about 30 minutes.

Pickled vegetables

Next you clean your cilantro, make spicy mayo. I used garlic chili paste and mayo, cut a piece of a baguette approximately 6 inches long, slice it in half and hollow out the middle. Slather with the spicy mayo, place some cilantro, then the patties and top with the pickled vegetables, drizzle some of the vinegar onto the top inside half of the bread and put your sandwich together.

Vegetarian Bahn Mi

Makes 4-6 sandwiches

The patties

2 cups meatless meat (I used Gardein brand)

2 eggs lightly beaten

2 tbs corn starch

1 tsp minced fresh ginger

2 spring onion the light colored part chopped finely

1 tbs soy sauce

1 tbs chili paste

salt and pepper to taste

Mix everything together and let sit for about 15 minutes. Heat skillet with some oil, place a spoonful of the mixture into the hot pan, flatten a little with your spoon and fry until nicely browned. Flip over and fry the other side. Set aside.

Pickled Vegetables

1 watermelon radish

1 large carrot

1 cucumber peeled

1/3 cup rice wine vinegar

1 tsp sugar

2 tsp sesame oil

Juice of 1 small lime

handfull of cilantro

1 jalapeno pepper seeds removed and thinly sliced

Using a vegetable peeler peel off thin slices of the vegetables and place in a bowl, Mix the vinegar, sugar, oil and lime juice and pour over vegetables and let it sit while you prepare the bread and mayo.

Putting the sandwich together.

Hollow out both halves of the baguette, mix some mayo with chili sauce and spread on the bottom half, place some cilantro and jalapeño pepper on the bread, lay seveeral patties on and top with some of the pickled vegetables. Drizzle some of the vinegar from the veggies on the other half of bread and put it together. Enjoy!

I’m curious about the Gardein. Partly as it’s impossible to find anything meatless here that doesn’t have odd additives. Like, yeast extract! That and citric acid seems to be in everything. The latter is even used in jam.

Well Johnny Gardein does have yeast eztract but not citric acid. It’s non GMO which is good, the list of ingredients are pretty straightforward, I recognize everything and can actually pronounce it. I wish I could have made meatballs but it wouldn’t hold together. Oh well the patties were still good. Thanks so much.

As a mostly vegetarian, I confess I haven’t tried many meat substitutes, and the ones I have, weren’t to my taste. My body doesn’t do well with too much soy, and so many of them use that as the base. Is this product soy based? I’ve been wanting to do a vegetarian bahn mi – I just love those sandwiches! And I love the creative approach you took to this challenge!

Hi Susan; Yes Gardein is soy based I bet you could do with portobello mushrooms that have been basted with ginger,sesame soy maybe. This was tasty, the gardein is my first time tasting a meat substitute. I hope they don’t mind my creative approach. Thanks so much.

I’ve never been to Vegas, well I did have a layover in Vegas on my way to California once but never got outside the airport. This was a fun challenge taking me outside my comfort zone, I like that. Thanks Teagan.

Nice! I actually buy “fake meat” often and make taco’s. I really like it spiced up Mexican style. It’s great for a change. I love how you made your own pickles and your spicy mayo sound fabulous. Great challenge Suzanne!

I love bahn mi and never even thought of a vegetarian version before. It was really nice and a change from the regular. I saw a recipe for meatball bahn mi on Epicurious, my meatballs didn’t work with the meat substitute but the patties are really nice. Thanks so much Juliana.

Here I am again Suzanne, innocently doing my mail at 3.06 am when I open one and WHAM it’s no warning food pics again.Now just where am I going t find all those ingredients at this time of the day? Never mind that, what are you doing hanging around my mail box at that time anyway, you should be in bed.
If you don’t take more care in future you’ll hear my stomach gurgle from there.
xxx Massive Saturday Hugs xxx.

So, I order that chili sauce online! Love it. And a bahn mi – such a wonderful sandwich. Nice intro; the name Tal is a family name that is so gorgeous; it jumped out. No wonder her food wonderful, too. Thank you for being innovative, warm and generous in your blog, comments and recipes.

Wow, loving all the ingredients in this sandwich that you’ve put together. Hmmmm, I may have seen the beefless ground somewhere, but I’m not quite sure where. A great, creative recipe, thanks for sharing and Happy FF!

Ohh… I love Bahn Mi! I always think of it like a Vietnamese hoagie 😉 What a creative idea to make it meatless. I’ve always been curious about using meat substitutes in the kitchen but have never tried it out before. You sure make it look delicious!

Great work Suzanne… I love how you’ve enhanced this dish and created something a little new and different! I’ve not had Bahn Mi before, but with those beautiful flavours, I’m definitely tempted to try it now… though not entirely sure that I could go with the fake meat. Hmm, food for thought!

Bahn Mi is traditionally made with meat usually pork. It’s delicious, I love to use glazed and caramelized pork, with the pickled veggies and spicy mayo it’s really a beautiful and delicious sandwich. Thanks so much.

What a good looking sandwich Suzanne! Good job! Im sure you completed the challenge successfully. Iv never seen much of meat substitutes here, i think iv seen veggie hotdogs somever. I think i mus research on that here, n must try. 🙂

Thank you, it’s a good sandwich. I don’t know if they liked my creative approach to their menu but we’ll see. As a general rule I don’t use meat substitutes since I eat meat but it’s nice for a change.

Thank you, thats important to me. There was no compensation for doing this. I simply chose to do it because of the challenge. In cooking if we don’t challenge ourselves it can become boring. I love a challenge, it’s important to keep our ideas fresh and get creative. You are very very good at that!!

I look for the Chili Garlic Sauce and see if I can find it here, if not I order it. I like vegetarian sandwiches and yours looks fantastic, especially the pickled veggies. In my vegetarian days I used to make a Reuben Sandwich using baked and marinated tempeh.

This looks absolutely divine! I would never have guessed this product wasn’t beef, and I have a thing for Bahn Mi, especially the vegetables.

It was very interesting that you went from a normally meat sandwich to vegetarian, but even more interesting that you went from Italian, which I’m sure is a no brainer for you (Yes, I am remembering your gorgeous meatball sub!) to Vietnamese!

Lol, I was going to make it Indian, using the gardein to make kofta but it is a strange consistency and you can’t make balls, maybe if I had whizzed in the processor to break it up. I still wonder what they think of my taking it from Italy to Vietnam, thanks so much.

A really interesting experiment, Suzanne – I am definitely a carnivore so I do not get all that excited about meat substitutes, but on the other hand I love Vietnamese and Thai cuisines and I especially like *your* cuisine 😉 so I am pretty sure I would love your Bahn Mi too! 🙂

Looks delish Suzanne!! I haven’t cooked plant based meat either, but have eaten it. Do you have Native Foods restaurants (fast food) by you. They do a nice job– it’s all so colorful and makes you feel good to eat it! You’re expanding our horizons! thanks.

Thanks Rhonda, no I have never heard of Native foods but any restaurant that makes you feel good about what you eat is alright by me. It was a good experience cooking with plant based faux meat, with the spicing it tasted really good.

Waw, Suzanne! Your meatless bahn mi looks like the real deal! I love making your special sandwich soon but I also love the real bahn mi!! You can’t tell the difference between them: really fascinating! 🙂 xxx

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